Religion thread

codeorange wrote:Let me make this as clear as I possibly can to you Mly. YOU don't tell ME what MY religion is all about. I deleted your response to my post because it came off as holier than thou arrogant and disrespectful, and aside from that, you missed my point entirely, which not to my surprise, I was kind of expecting. You're not in my shoes, living the lifestyle of a born again Christian, so until you do, you have no right to point out things to me that I already know. Just because you point out things that I didn't point out does not mean that I'm uneducated about my religion.

"I know that God's real name is Yahweh, whereas you do not."

^ Get off the soapbox, dude, because I'm not having any of that.

You're wrong on God's real name. His real name is Yehovah, not Yahweh. I can confirm that through MANY other born again believing Christians.

The apple IS the forbidden fruit mentioned in the book of Genesis. God told Adam and Eve straight up. Satan was the one who tempted Eve to eat that forbidden fruit, and she did, and sinned. She offered Adam to eat this fruit as well, and he did, and sinned. Before they did this, they did have perfect bodies, and they were meant to live forever. Immortality. After they sinned, they were punished by having to only live a period of time and then die.

At all of the above, I think I see the problem here. I pulled what I remember from the original (Not really original, actually, but closer to it than the Christian interpretation.) Jewish Old Testament, whereas you obviously got your knowledge from the Christian interpretation, which changed many things. I remember very, very clearly that God's name was said to be Yahweh in the modern Jewish interpretation of the bible, but due to adaptation decay, more specifically "hijacked by Jesus," that means absolutely jack in the Christian adaptation, in which it was changed to Yehovah. It's a simple case of "different canon, different petty facts." My bad on that one.

False prophets intentionally twist the truth of what is really said in the Holy Bible.

Kindly explain how the Christian interpretation of The Old Testament and creation of The New Testament is any different.

They have their own interpretations of the bible, and those views are wrong.

How are they inherently wrong?

They're out and about all over the world. IMO, they're not hard to find if you look in the right places. They will either add onto what is said in the bible, such as add verses which are clearly not there, or they will take away what is said in the bible. For example, I have heard of some churches intentionally discarding the book of Revelation, not acknowledging it at all. No TRUE Christian church group would do that sort of thing. Some false prohpets also teach the works of the devil and they share their views on certain political issues and politicians and how they're supposedly tied to righteousness, and whatnot.

Mly wrote:Define "false prophet," "people who preach false doctrines," "corrupt and wrong," and "mock God," please.

Mly wrote:

codeorange wrote:Truth be told, I am a born again Christian who believes in the end times/rapture, and likewise, to go with that, I believe in some (but not all) conspiracy theories, but besides that, to go in depth with this topic, I believe in God, and I believe in his son Jesus Christ, and I'm not ashamed in saying that. They're one and the same, and I believe in and accept the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, because that clears the sins that we have made in the past, but also what we will do in the future. I just simply accept what He did on the cross, and that's all I needed to do to be saved.

At least it's easier than other religions....Wait, what? You believe that God is his own father? Please explain this in greater detail. I find it very amusing that your God so willingly breaks the rules of the very reality that he shaped.

I do not go to church because I do not feel as if that's mandatory, but I do read my bible every chance that I get, and I cherish the times that I have when I read my bible. Would it be okay to go to church? Sure, go ahead, but don't feel pressured to go because it truly isn't mandatory.

Really? You're making me start to like Christianity. Hey, if I don't have to do anything but occasionally flip through an ancient, mediocre piece of literature to have a reduced chance of being in horrible pain for all eternity, then it's probably worth it.[/gambler's complex]

Death is just a part of life. Now Adam and Eve commited the sin of eating the forbidden fruit, they and all other generations of people were punished with the presence of death, and while death occurs to people even today, when you die and go to Heaven, you will live forever in afterlife. After the rapture occurs, people won't experience death anymore. They'll be given new bodies where they will be indeed immortal, given to them as a reward from God.

If I recall correctly, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, and there was another fruit that gave immortality, and because God didn't want any beings equal to him challenging him, (Man already had the knowledge of good and evil that he had and animals lacked.) he kicked them out of the garden of Eden so they couldn't eat the immortality fruit. I think it says he also increased the labor pains of women, gave them periods, made them emotionally unstable and fickle, and (I'm not entirely sure about this one, but I'm almost certain that it's untrue.) took away their ability to enjoy sex. I'm certain he trapped Satan in the form of a snake, but I can't remember what he did to man.

I am definitely aware of the fact that there are false prophets and those people preach false doctorines, and those things are running so rampant these days. I have no respect for those kinds of people because what they preach is corrupt and wrong. Those are the kinds of people who wouldn't be afraid to mock God, but IMO, it's a big no-no to do that.

Define "false prophet," "people who preach false doctrines," "corrupt and wrong," and "mock God," please.

I believe that there is a god and I proclaim that there is only one god. His name is God.

The Judeochristian name of God is Yahweh. It's sad, really; I'm an atheist, and I know the name of your God, whereas you do not.

Now if anybody wants to believe in the contrary, then by all means, continue to believe that way. I'm not trying to make anybody agree with me. I'm only explaining my beliefs and point of view.

EDIT: Why I put in "before" in one of the paragraphs, I will never know. Mess up.

A Freudian slip, methinks.

@i76:
1: Religion should not reflect the morals of a society, nor should it remain static for all time. It should reflect the morals that are most prudent to the advancement of society. For example, my post about masturbation and homosexuality. Those were forbidden for a good reason thousands of years ago: they detracted from the population growth when more people were always a plus. Now we have a bit too many people, and they might as well be happy screwing willing participants of the same sex or themselves, seeing as increasing the population of the world at this point would only hurt us.
2: What difference will any human impact in the present make on Earth when the last humans are dead? Either none or a barely noticeable one that will fade a way in, at best, a million years. By your logic and the logic that we'll all die eventually, (which we will, due to the fact that the universe will eventually be unable to support life due to heat death) absolutely nothing is worth fighting for.
3: And why is your religion exempt to this rule?
4: It's because people say they believe in something, then don't follow what they say they believe in. It's present from coast to coast, from border to border, in the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago right up to god-damned Gate's house, not to mention that it's just as present in every other nation of the world.
5: If you mean the conclusion of what is right and what is wrong, I come to the conclusion that all that harms society is wrong, and all that helps it is right. I don't know that it's correct or that it's worth fighting for. I can only assume and offer that I think it to be only logical that we consider that which harms society wrong and the opposite right.
6: Well, something that lowers population happiness is harmful, I believe, based solely on my belief that the main goal of life is to be happy. There may be a few possible exceptions to this, though. For example, if all the governments of the world were to rip the global economy to shreds and disband all militaries to build a machine that makes everyone on the earth happy, that would be unacceptable in my opinion. This is because the economy and military of a civilization are crucial to maintaining happiness. What good would the happiness machine do us if an asteroid hit the earth the day after we built it and destroyed all humans? We wouldn't have the economy to build something to direct it away from Earth. What if aliens invaded and tried to take the machine? Ordinarily, seeing as the technology to get here from even the nearest star would be great, we would stand a minimal chance of defending it with our military, but without it, we could do absolutely nothing. Additionally, such a machine would be like a drug, in that it would make us happy and take away our motivation to do things. Without our motives, we would eventually die of crumbling infrastructure and dwindling food. With our motives, we would last much longer, and be able to defend what joy in the world we have, and the like. Longevity is also important, I suppose.

codeorange wrote:Let me make this as clear as I possibly can to you Mly. YOU don't tell ME what MY religion is all about. I deleted your response to my post because it came off as holier than thou arrogant and disrespectful, and aside from that, you missed my point entirely, which not to my surprise, I was kind of expecting.

Mly wrote:
@I76: Crap, I forgot about your post. Here:
1: What if your religion said something insane such as "all people who drink water or anything containing water must die?"
2: The point still stands.
3: Anecdotal evidence. Non-anecdotal backing or bust.
4: Am I meant to take that as an agreement?
5: Not at all. I think someone should lead them out of religion because it's doing no (or very little) good, and actually holding us back in some areas.
6: To be as happy as possible for as long as possible, I suppose. Also, it's possible that the universe actually is, according to our current (limited, of course) knowledge of the universe. As for the happiness and harm thing, I suppose that's the only logical explanation for my dislike of the idea of a permanent happiness machine: good old fashioned human fear of perfection.

Mly wrote:1: Well, let's go for something slightly less absurd, then. What if your religion said "all people who eat anything other than beans must die," then?
2:
3: And let me guess, it says this in the bible and only the bible?
4:
5: It's certainly not stopping any crime like a good population control measure should, and religious zealots are constantly whining over things like stem cell research and cloning.
6: The key difference is that my suppositions are based somewhat in logic, whereas religion is based in ancient, and quite frankly, adaptation-decayed, outdated texts.

Mly wrote:
1: You're so very passive. I can't understand it.
3: Proof or bust.
5: That makes sense, actually. Knowing about religions, whether one believes in them or not, is doubtlessly culturing.
6: The problem is that religious zealots go spouting off that "this technology is wrong," or "that technology is wrong" just about any time anything revolutionary comes along.
7: I would give an objective argument unless such an argument would obviously fail. In such a case, I would appeal to people's basic psychological systems. But I'm a manipulative bastard.

Mly wrote:1: What is "ultimate truth?"
3: This is the internet. Do you know how easy it is to use Google? The only reasons I didn't look for proof of your claims myself is because I'm lazy and, this being somewhat of a formal debate, the burden of proof is upon you and not me.
5: I fail to see how that's relevant so long as we have happiness, or at the very least, the illusion thereof.
6: First of all, I don't care if manipulation was not in the cards, and second of all, I think we can both agree that killing millions simply because they're different is wrong, you because of your religion and me because of my logic. My logic is a bit like a religion, actually.